The Dangers Of Short Term Memory And Long Term Memory

Memory is one of the most important things we have in our life because it involves in almost every part of our mind including problem solving, decision making, and our interest in life. We depend on it because it helps us make good decisions in life. Memory is the solution in learning and thinking and we use it in our everyday life. Think about the first time you kissed someone you loved or the time you learned how to tie your shoe for the first time. Those are all forms of memory whether they are short or long term. If you do not remember anything from the past then you are having a hard time managing your memory. Without memory you would be exposed to new and extraordinary things in life. Take for example, “Aliens, Love where are they?” by John Hodgman and “Jon” by George Saunders. John Hodgman and Jon both teach readers how without memories we would have a difficult time knowing who we are, who we love, and what we want in life.

Memory is divided into three categories. These categories consist of: sensory memory, short term memory and long term memory, out of these short term memory is the main focus in this essay. It has been widely researched due to interest of how much memory can be stored, how long this memory can be stored for and what information is memorised.

Memory retention is essential to all human beings. It is a fundamental function of our brain: whether it be memorizing people’s names, memorizing math formulas, or memorizing the location of the car keys. We all recognize the importance of memorization and we all seek ways to improve our memory retention skills.

A person can have the best memory however, it all comes down to how someone studies. A common method of studying among students is cramming. We make the mistake of devoting a big portion of our time to learning a material and over learn.

Do you consider yourself to have a great memory or do you consider yourself to have a bad memory? Can you remember more than four phone numbers and more than three immediate family members birthdays without using any technology? If you cannot answer those simple questions than maybe you should reconsider on working on your memorization side of your brain. Joshua Foer, the author of The End of Remembering, and Paulo Freire, author of The “Banking” Concept of Education, both write about how important memory is in the world today. In Foer’s passage he states that before paper, books, and modern technology people were expected to remember any piece of information that was given to them. Now people rely on anything that could record information so they would not have to remember it or worry about forgetting. He believes that technology is running our memory. However in Freire’s passage he states that memorizing decontextualizes and is unrelated to present conditions, but memory can concrete conditions of our daily lives. The importance of memory and its functions in the world today is that it lets a person find self-identity, prevents shallow base of knowledge, and sets values.

Some scientists believe that parts of long term memory are permanent while others will eventually weaken over time. (3) Long term memory can be divided into three sections: procedural memory, declarative memory, and remote memory. Procedural memory includes motor skills such as learning how to ride a bike or how to drive a car. "Such memories are slow to acquire but more resistant to change or loss." (4) Declarative memory is used to remember facts, such as names, dates and places. It is easy to learn but also easy to lose. Finally there is episodic memory, which is the record of events that a person stores throughout his or her experience. Recent studies show that these events, as soon as they occur, are sent to a temporary part of the brain called the hippocampus, and that over time they are moved to the neocortex for permanent storage. (5).

Steve Jobs once said, "You and I have memories longer he road that stretches out ahead". The brain is so detailed and holds so much information in every little area. There are so many things happening in the brain at once, and one of the most fascinating things would be memory. The memory has various abilities that make it so complex, including the memory system, how it functions, and memory retrieval, along with the capacity to memorize certain ideas easier

Have you ever wanted the ability of good memory skills? Nelson Dellis and Michael Mirski are two competitors in the USA Memory Championship. They use different tricks and strategies in order to have a memory that can guarantee them a win in this championship. Good memory skills are not something that everyone is born with though. The two competitors use mnemonic devices and methods to have good memory skills.

Whether you are currently studying pre-med courses or are further along in the curriculum, battling with your memory can be frustrating. If you are trying to study for an exam, forgetting important details could make you question your capabilities. Try to remember that nearly everyone struggles with poor memory now and then.

Having short term memory is an important thing to have. Without short term memory we wouldn’t be able to recall things from only moments before. Short Term Memory is the ability to recall things from moments to days before. Imagine having a conversation with someone and then as soon as your attention is redirected you forget what you’ve just been told.

At first, we need to know what is memory. When we study at school, most of the teachers will demonstrate memory as computer. They always ask us not to memorize all of the things instead of understanding the knowledge because memory is kind of space. If we put much focus

“We remember what we understand; we understand only what we pay attention to; we pay attention to what we want,” is a famous memory quote stated by an actor, Edward Bolles. Memory is a broad term that reflects different processing abilities on how humans encode, store and retrieves information. There are numerous domains in the human’s memory ability with the storage and retrieval of short-term and long-term information. For many centuries, theorist has tested recall and recognition capabilities on the human’s memory functions. Memory retention is our ability to retain experiences based on the mental process, through the organization of information through meaning, where relations between new information is associated with the previously stored

Memory makes us. It is, to an extent, a collection of unique and personal experiences that we, as individuals, have amassed over our lifetime. It is what connects us to our past and what shapes our present and the future. If we are unable remember the what, when, where, and who of our everyday lives, our level of functioning would be greatly impacted. Memory is defined as or recognized as the “sum or total of what we remember.” Memory provides us the ability to learn and adjust to or from prior experiences. In addition, memory or our ability to remember plays an integral role in the building and sustaining of relationships. Additionally, memory is also a process; it is how we internalize and store our external environment and experiences. It entails the capacity to remember past experiences, and the process of recalling previous experiences, information, impressions, habits and skills to awareness. It is the storage of materials learned and/or retained from our experiences. This fact is demonstrated by the modification, adjustment and/or adaptation of structure or behavior. Furthermore, we as individuals, envision thoughts and ideas of the present through short-term memory, or in our working memory, we warehouse past experiences and learned values in long-term memory, also referred to as episodic or semantic memory. Most importantly, memory is malleable and it is intimately linked to our sense of identity and where we believe we belong in the world.

Memory is a very important tool to our everyday lives. Without memory, we would not be able to function very productively. You can look at someone suffering with Alzheimer’s disease and see the effects of the inability to make new memories, as well as lost and confused memory. According to what I have read in the textbook, the foundation of our speech and learning is our memory.

Case 1 tells the story of Henry Molaison (HM), a man with no memory. He lost his memory due to the operation of suctioned out the hippocampus to treat his epileptic seizures. At that time, it was not known yet that the hippocampus was essential for making memories. After operation, his seizures were significantly reduced, but Henry suffered a global amnesia. Owen et al. (2007) describes patients with global amnesia as perceptive and attentive but with a total loss of short-term memory and some trouble accessing memories of the recent past. Henry could not learn new things as he quickly forgot everything that he had learned. He could learn at a subconscious level only.